Nudes – Marigold Men and Sirens

Rosie attended her first life drawing session when she was about 8 years old – she was ill and went along with her Mum! The human form is amazing and should be celebrated – life drawing is a great process: observation and focused working, the elemental or physical consideration of human existence. Rosie organisies a monthly lifedrawing day in her studios in Bideford in North Devon, oportunity for local Artists to share the cost of a proffesional life model in a well lit space. (link to SHOP  to book a session).

The images are small edition prints, 5-10 maximum prints made from each plate. The plate is generally made directly from life, drawn out on mountboard – waste from picture framers, then cut with a sharp knife – it’s a fast and clean matrix to work with and generates great papery textures, however only small editions are possible before the cardboard squashes. A sustainable / waste / recyled material.

Rosie refers to the female print as Sirens: ‘I want to depict women as thinkers, strong, singular entities not mother or queen or sex object, able to indulge and be guilty of sloth or envy, to have power, strength and diety status, but still maintain feminine beauty – sirens’. The depiction of women in art has been a preoccupation through a degree in Archaeology: the goddess figures of fertility, the possibility of matriarchal societies in the Neolithic and the dominance of home maker, gatherer roles for women, without much evidence from material culture. The work pushes to counter experiencing depictions of women in Degas delicate dancers and burlesque bathers, Rodin’s fallen in the gates of hell and sexualised drawings of women; Henry Moore’s gigantic queens and powerful mothers cradling infants reinforcing the same depictions of women. Rosie is increasingly interested in depicting less well known women, historical characters in a different light, the juxtaposition of the beauty of the nude with the fem-fetal or warrior woman, powerful goddesses of different histories – depicting the power and strength of the feminine, in an era of infringed womens rights internationally.

Marigold Men (Marigolds are luridly coloured rubber gloves) are an ongoing series of prints, the male nude wearing rubber gloves, comic and concerned with the depiction of men in advertising using cleaning products along side the male names given to cleaning products / vacuum cleaners. Even though the realm of the domestic is still predominantly female – ‘wouldn’t we all like a Marigold man?’ This is a small attempt to redress the lack of domestic male figures depicted in art – not just king, leader, soldier or nobleman but man who also cleans the toilet. Many of the poses come from Art history – Rondin’s Thinker, or figures from Florentine fresco – but wound back to the domestic by rubber gloves and titles refferencing domestic frustration.

Click each image – for short description – please email Rosie for portfolios of available prints and to make a direct purchase. CLICK HERE TO BUY – through Artizan Gallery in Torquay, Devon UK.